RSS feeds allow users to subscribe to feeds that they are interested in. A "feed" is an XML file, in an RSS format, that contains an abstract of a resource on the internet. There is data within the feed that describes the resource (title, description, date etc). Some RSS readers will integrate with ones mail software, so new items come up looking like mail. Others are stand alone. The benefit for a user is that all of the things I'm interested in are located in one piece of software. BF postings might appear in a list with an RSS feed from Velonews for example. RSS has become a very common standard for syndicating content. All of the major news sites use it as well as many blog sites etc.